


The Best Policy

by akaparalian



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Truth Serum, Truth Spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3099491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaparalian/pseuds/akaparalian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowing Gabe can't lie to him makes this both easier and more terrifying, and certainly a hell of a lot weirder.</p>
<p>Or: a mysterious event of some kind leaves Gabe compelled to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and it's kind of making Matt's life really confusing.</p>
<p>Or: "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Policy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abstractconcept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abstractconcept/gifts).



> MERRY HOLIDAYS, MY DEAR. <3
> 
> Sidenote: writing this made me think about the possibility of an Ella Enchanted AU. Wouldn't that be cool? That book was my _favorite_ when I was little. Anyway, that's beside the point.
> 
> If anyone out there in the internet-verse _actually_ knows how Gabe takes his coffee, let me know, for… for Reasons. For science. Because I looked (for science!), but my Google skills failed me, so.

"I just can't believe some of the chances we're missing," Gabe says suddenly, in the locker room on day early in the season, when half the guys have already cleared out, and -- that on its own wouldn't be weird, that's exactly the kind of thing they've _all_ been saying for, well, way too long. But then there's something about his tone, especially when he adds, "Some of the chances _I'm_ missing," something… scared, almost, and surprised, that makes Matt pick his head up from across the room and nod in what he hopes is a comforting way or something.

"We'll get there," he says slowly, not entirely sure how to counter whatever it is he just heard, not entirely sure he's supposed to. "We've been working hard, all of us -- you especially, eh? You've just gotta give it time."

And Gabe _has_ been working incredibly hard, lately -- comes early, stays late, takes every opportunity to talk things through when he can't be on the ice, and it's not like any of that stuff is _new_ , particularly, it's just a lot more, now. So Matt… feels right, telling him that, and feels right when he stands up and claps Gabe easily on the shoulder on his way out, too.

There's something about what Gabe had said, though -- about how he had said it, more like -- that sticks at the back of his mind, but Matt tries his best to shake it off, because if he can't even quite explain why it had seemed weird well enough that _he_ believes himself, he's probably making a fuss about nothing. By the next day, he's mostly forgotten it, just a slight feeling at the pit of his stomach that reminds him that something's seeming a little fishy.

That's just the beginning, though.

 

\---

The next time, Matt feels a little more -- vindicated, maybe, about the whole thing.

He, or whichever part of him is seeking validation on this, at any rate, doesn't have long to wait; the very next day, he shows up to skate and walks right in on Gabe giving a very frank, detailed analysis of their PK to an intensely focused EJ, who's nodding along and occasionally popping in a word of agreement. Once again, it's not the conversation that's out of the ordinary, particularly -- though Gabe wouldn't usually be _quite_ so brutally honest, or at least he never is with Matt, which raises a whole other set of questions, really -- but it's the way it's delivered. Gabe's tone has just the tiniest hint of what could maybe be called hysteria, though that's a bit of a stretch, Matt chides himself, and his face… he looks more than a little scared, the kind of look people usually get when things are spiraling out of control. But there's nothing especially strange going on -- just a normal conversation with a teammate, nothing scary at all -- so why the hell does he look like that?

Matt has no idea how to ask that question, so he just… doesn't. He interrupts, instead, knocking amiably into Gabe's shoulder and asking the both of them how they'd slept -- totally stupid, and totally obvious, he's pretty sure, and EJ scowls a little bit at him for busting in but Gabe just smiles gratefully, and Matt feels something warm and pleased settle in his chest and lets himself think he's solved the problem, whatever the problem _was_.

He's wrong: they've barely put their skates on before Gabe is giving an uncharacteristically straight answers to questions, going on for way too long about things like he can't make himself stop talking, and -- this is the clincher, really -- getting chirped by his teammates and _not chirping them back_ , saying nice things instead, and looking increasingly frustrated the whole time. The guys don't seem to think it's especially _weird_ , or, at least, not _bad_ weird; Factor, for example, looks both surprised and kind of touched that Gabe apparently thinks so much of him, but that's not the point. The point is that Gabe keeps looking startled and surprised and, as the day wears on, almost _hounded_ by what's coming out of his mouth, and that's freakin' weird.

By the time he's pulling off his skates, Matt's got about a billion and three questions swirling around in his head, but, he realizes as he watches Gabe get out of his gear and into streetclothes and keep talking and _talking_ about everything like he can't stop, he has _no idea_ how the hell he's supposed to actually ask any of them.

What if he's wrong? He'll look like some kind of psycho, asking questions like the ones he wants to ask. He feels like he needs to do _something_ , though -- no one else seems to have noticed anything's out of the ordinary, or if they have, they're not making it particularly obvious. Maybe that just means he's making up problems that don't exist, though? No -- he looks across the room and Gabe's chattering on about his childhood with this vaguely terrified look on his face, and all Tyson had done was ask him an inoffensive question about Sweden.

Okay, well, if no one else seems to have cottoned on, clearly that means whatever this is, it's up to Matt. Yes. He's going to -- he's going to ask questions, and he's going to do it in a totally calm, normal, level-headed manner, and Gabe is going to be grateful for his concern and _not_ think he's a freakshow. All of those things are true and he can do this.

"What the hell is up with you?" is, of course, what he blurts the instant he manages to get Gabe something approximating alone.

They're in the parking lot, hardly the most private of locales, but it's the best Matt could do without actually, well, asking to talk to Gabe alone, and like hell he was going to do that without an actual decent reason. Gabe gets this weird, pinched look on his face, and for a second Matt thinks that's all he's going to get, but then all at once Gabe lets out a breath and blurts, "I can't stop telling the truth and I don't have a fucking clue why."

He promptly claps a hand over his mouth, blushing _bright_ red, and that's the only thing that keeps Matt from whacking him on the arm and grumbling about being actually concerned and not asking for dickishness. No, that's -- genuine, he thinks, partially because Gabe's kind of a shit liar and partially because people can't blush like that on command. They just can't.

"Are you serious?" he asks, almost blankly, and Gabe seems to struggle with that one for a second, too, before nodding.

"I can't make myself stop talking," he says, sounding wholly miserable. "And I can't lie, either, all I wanted to do earlier was tell Ryan that he was a piece of shit but instead I started complimenting him on his work ethic, did you see that?"

Matt nods, because -- yeah, the inability to chirp properly was not only an indicator, it was also hilarious. Objectively speaking, that is.

Gabe groans a little bit -- maybe his amusement was a bit too obvious, then; Matt quickly tries to school his face into something that resembles a supportive expression -- but he also keeps talking. "It just started the other day," he says. "I didn't even notice at first. But when someone asks me a question, I just ramble like this, I kind of say everything that comes to mind, so I'm trying really hard not to think about stuff too hard, but, you know, how do you keep yourself from thinking about stuff, right, except there are some things that I _really_ don't want to tell any--"

"Gabe, stop," Matt interrupts finally, and that seems to work, because Gabe... well, he does stop. Possibly that's a minor miracle, because he looks supremely relieved, but Matt doesn't ask, in part out of a fear of more word vomit.

He gives himself a second to process. Assuming this isn't some vast, elaborate prank -- and, well, for his own mental well-being he just tends to assume things aren't unless they obviously are; he doesn't need that kind of paranoia in his life. Besides, Gabe is a _really_ terrible liar -- there's something really, really, really strange going on. That much seems obvious. What _isn't_ obvious is just what in the hell he's supposed to do about it.

"Come over to my place," he decides, a gut instinct to get to somewhere where they can figure this out in something resembling peace, Paisley permitting.

Gabe nods, his whatever-the-hell apparently not compelling him to talk when there isn't a direct question involved.

That's good, Matt thinks absently; it would kind of suck for him to start rattling off every time Patrick called out a drill in practice or something. "I'll... see you, then," he adds a little uncertainly, and Gabe offers him a smile, a little wavery, but there, and a quick, "Yeah, see you," before they part ways to head for their respective vehicles.

The only reason Matt manages to get home without being the cause of several major traffic accidents is by steadfastly forcing himself not to think about anything. He turns the radio up as loud as he feels comfortable doing, enough that the bass shakes the frame a little bit, and drives very carefully at very precisely the speed limit and Does Not think about anything that Gabe just told him, and whether or not it's true, and what he can or can't and is or isn't going to do about it. Because if he does, he's pretty damn sure he's going to, like, freak out midway through his drive home and possibly discover the true meaning of road rage, or at least road confusion, and that's... possibly the least helpful thing he can do at this point in time. So, instead, he just drives.

It's actually kind of a wonder he makes it all the way to the house without burning any holes in the street with the force of what has been referred to as -- not by him, God forbid, but still -- his intense concentration glare.

Gabe's not there yet when Matt pulls into the driveway, but he heads on inside anyway, gets some coffee started and then leans against the refrigerator to scrub one hand over his face incredulously. He's still half-convinced this is some kind of prank, but whatever, he supposes they'll figure that one out soon enough.

He's brought out of _that_ line of thought when Gabe actually rings the doorbell. Matt doesn't catch himself in time to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Every damn time he tells him there's a key under the mat, and every damn time Gabe retorts that that's unsafe and he's going to get robbed blind, and then the next time he comes around he waits at the front door and rings the bell all over again and waits to be invited inside like he's never been here before. Matt will admit that it's kind of adorable, maybe, but only under duress.

Good thing he's not the one apparently hit by some freaky truth bomb, or he'd have made embarrassing comments about Gabe's not-cute habits and his hair and probably everything else at _least_ twelve times by now. He shudders at the thought.

When he opens the door, Gabe's standing kind of sheepishly at the other side, like he knows exactly what Matt's going to say because it's the same thing he says every time. Given that they have bigger problems than Gabe's inability to make himself at home, though, Matt lets it go just this once and settles for just telling him, "Come on inside, you dumbass."

Gabe grins at him a little gratefully and does as he's told.

The coffee's mostly ready by the time they get back to the kitchen, so Matt starts fussing around with mugs and milk and sugar, knowing how to make Gabe's without even asking -- sugar, and just a tiny bit of milk, so that he can pretend he's a badass who drinks it black but still have a little something to cut the taste. Gabe accepts it when Matt hands it to him with a mumbled, "Thanks," already taking a long swallow and looking a little bit like he wishes it were something stronger.

"You'll burn your tongue," Matt informs him, amused despite himself, and Gabe grins back, looking a little less haggard.

"You gotta learn to live on the wild side, Dutch," he says, and Matt laughs, taking a much more careful sip of his own and shaking his head silently. There are times when Gabe impresses him -- and all of them, the whole team and probably the fans and God and everyone -- with his maturity, and then there are times when... well.

"So," Matt says before he can get any further down that rabbit hole, setting his mug down on the counter and crossing his arms as he leans back against it. "How long's this thing of yours been going on?"

"Two days," Gabe tells him, then he pauses for a moment, looks like he's struggling with himself, and adds, sounding much more frustrated, "ever since we got back from that last road trip."

Matt blinks. That's approximately useless. Any of a million things could have happened on the road -- who knows what it takes to, well, compel someone to tell the truth all the time, but whatever it is could probably have happened in that time. "So do you think the trip has something to do with it, then?"

"What, like something happened to me on the road and I didn't notice?" Gabe sighs, takes another long drink of coffee, and nods. "Yeah, I thought of that. I mean -- it seems kind of unlikely, but then again so does everything about, you know, compulsive honesty or whatever the hell we're gonna call this."

Matt nods back at him, narrowing his eyes a little. "So you can't control it at all? Like, just now you tried not to tell me the bit about the road trip, just that it was two days ago, right? That doesn't work at all?"

Gabe grimaces and shakes his head. "Haven't had any luck so far," he says, sounding more than a little put out, and almost despite himself Matt feels a twist of sympathy. "You could ask me just about anything right now and I'd probably tell you."

Matt tilts his head. "But earlier, when I told you to stop -- that worked, didn't it?"

"You mean back in the parking lot? Yeah, it did."

"Okay, so maybe we can work with that." Matt's got no idea _how_ , exactly, but hey. It's better than nothing, and so far it's all they've got.

Gabe frowns at him a little, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, we've got to get you where you can -- you know, go out in public and not spill your darkest secrets to everyone you meet, right?" Matt says, raising one eyebrow like he's daring Gabe to argue. Gabe nods slowly.

"Hey, no arguments here, just... I don't know, I don't see how we're gonna do that without me telling everyone what to look out for so they can stop me if I get going, you know? Like I am right now. I can tell I'm doing it, but I can't _stop_ , this is so frustrating--"

"Stop it," Matt tells him firmly, and he closes his mouth, relieved. Matt takes a deep breath, trying to pretend he's not a little overwhelmed by the amount of control he apparently has over this situation.

"Okay, well, if you don't want to tell anyone else we're just going to have to stick together for now," he says determinedly, and Gabe stares at him for a second, blinking, before slowly nodding.

"You don't have to do that, Dutchy, I don't want to be a pain in the neck," he says quietly, and Matt waves him off before he can get much farther.

"Don't be stupid," he says, smiling fondly at him and reaching for his mug where he's already drained it, turning to refill it. "Like I can let you blab on to everyone on Earth for however long it takes to get this fixed."

What he doesn't say, what both of them are very carefully avoiding, is that they've got no idea at all _how_ they're going to fix it. Or where it came from. Or what to do about it, barring Matt following Gabe around everywhere he goes and trying to stop him from telling anyone his credit card numbers or something stupid like that.

Matt sighs. Somehow, he feels like this is going to take a _lot_ of getting used to.

 

\---

He's not wrong; getting used to it takes some time. After all, it's not like he and Gabe never hung out before, but there's a _world_ of difference between "we hang out whenever we feel like it" and "we hang out all the time, because if we don't he's going to say something he'll regret." And, unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly, they don't exactly fly under the radar.

"Hey, Gabe," Ryan calls across the room in the early afternoon after morning skate one Saturday, voice open and friendly, and Matt winces a little with a pretty good idea of what he's about to say. "You wanna come out later? Ginner's been sending me restaurant recommendations again."

"Uh, actually," comes the response, slightly muffled and more than slightly full of barely-masked nervousness, "I was gonna hang out at Matt's. I'm in the middle of kicking his ass at Mario."

"Well, Jesus, it sounds a lot lamer when you say it like that," Matt cuts in, not missing the grateful glance Gabe shoots him even as he somehow manages to get his head stuck in his shirt as he pulls it on. Sometimes Matt's genuinely surprised the guy ever made it out of childhood.

Ryan laughs, which is definitely the intended effect, but he also doesn’t let it drop. "You two sure are spending a lot of time together," he teases, flashing them both a grin from under his stupid hipster beanie, which sits perfectly on his stupid hipster hair. "Now why is that, I wonder?"

Gabe laughs nervously. "I guess I just can't get enough of him," he says, clearly trying to play it off as a joke -- and that's how it comes across, earning him more than a few chuckles from around the room -- but Matt's spine stiffens even as he turns to look as casually as possible, and yep, sure enough, the way his face says 'Oh my God, I can't _believe_ I just said that' couldn't really be any clearer.

Everyone else seems satisfied, though, and they drop the subject and move on, so Matt tries to follow their example and just -- let it go. It's hard, because something about that expression on Gabe's face and the way his voice had twisted around the words "can't get enough of him" sticks under his skin and prickles with unease and uncertainty, but he firmly tells himself to forget it ever happened and tries to stick by that.

Overall, though, it's not as bad as he thinks it's going to be. Gabe is weird, of course, but that's nothing new; in fact, in a lot of ways it's actually _better_ , because just as he had back when Matt first figured all this out, he proves himself over and over again to be incapable of chirping. Matt can say whatever he wants, mock him lightly for having Disney Prince hair and ask him how all those fangirls of his are doing, and all he can say back is that he thinks they're doing great and he's proud of his hair, thank you very much. It's refreshing.

Of course, Matt doesn’t have _too_ much fun with it; he's not actually an asshole. And Gabe always laughs along too, so he tells himself it's not like he's taking advantage of this weird condition, and even if he was, Gabe would have let him know by now if it pissed him off. That's the other thing about forced truthfulness -- saying "It's fine" when it isn't suddenly becomes a whole lot harder.

Of course, given the way their season is going, that's not necessarily a _good_ thing. Matt's certainly endlessly impressed with the way Gabe manages to not let this thing, whatever it is, fuck with how he interacts with the press; that's one complication neither of them really stopped to consider until the first time it actually came up, and personally he thinks Gabe handled it with aplomb. The inability to stop talking had been a bit of an issue, but, well, none of the reporters had exactly _complained_ , so they let it go, seeing as they were fresh out of other options.

And then the Stars come to Denver right at the tail end of November, and -- in what's looking to hopefully be something of a turnaround from their entirely dubious form earlier in the season -- they pull off a decisive 5-2 win. The crowd's electric; Matt gets a goal and an assist, and so does Gabe, and it's just… It's like a lot of the little itching nagging things that have buried themselves under his skin are finally silenced, at least for tonight.

So, in the grand tradition laid out by many a victorious team before them, they go out afterwards -- not the whole team, and really it's relatively low-key, but they end up at a bar anyway, the sort of softly high-class place that never really gets too rowdy, which, really, suits Matt just fine.

It's a good, solid celebration. They've taken over a couple of booths in the back, fifteen or so guys crowded around, drifting in and out as they go to get a new round of drinks or leave for good or show up late or whatever. Matt's having a good enough time just hanging out, having a beer or two, but nothing crazy, talking mostly inane nonsense with Factor and Tyson and Iggy and pretty much everyone else, at one point or another.

Of course, he does his best to keep a weather eye out for Gabe, but he seems to be doing okay; he's laughing and chattering and, for once, no one's looking at him funny for nattering on, and so Matt lets himself think -- a little guiltily, it's true, but still -- that, just this once, it ought to be okay to let him do his own thing and trust him to come to Matt if he needs help and stop _worrying_ all the damn time.

And, aside from that little bit of guilt, that works out just fine. It's like a weight lifting off of him, to tell himself that it's all right to ignore his responsibility for just these few hours -- not that Gabe himself is a weight, or a burden, or anything of the kind, far from it, just… well, babysitting _any_ teammate like that would be a pain in the ass after more than a day or two, and it's been _weeks_.

So everything's fine; he's kicking back, laughing and talking with teammates and friends, enjoying the feeling of a good solid win in his bones, having a great time all around. It's getting kind of late, but in a way that feels good, almost powerful, not in a way that makes him particularly want to think about heading off towards home.

And then he looks across the room, almost purely by chance, and sees Gabe pressed sidelong up against the bar, talking to a beautiful, beautiful woman.

He's not keen to admit it, particularly, but Matt pretty much chokes on his drink. Which is stupid, really stupid -- it's nothing he hasn't seen a million times before, and it's not like he's got any reason to have this clenching feeling suddenly appear in the general region of his chest, but it catches him by surprise. Yeah, that's what it is -- he's surprised, that's all.

No, on second thought, screw that. He's not in the business of self-denial, that seems like a bad plan all round. He's jealous, that's what this is. The question remaining before the house, then, is: what the hell, _why_?

"I'm going to go get another drink," he mutters to Ryan, who's sitting next to him now, and he doesn't even really look back to see if he gets any acknowledgement before he slips out and weaves his way through the crowd until he can finally reach the bar.  
Gabe's companion spots Matt before Gabe himself does, her eyes flickering up to glance at him where he's coming up at Gabe's side. She has really nice eyes, Matt acknowledges somewhat grudgingly; she's all-around gorgeous, and he's really, really not sure why he's so pissed off about it.

"Matty!" Gabe exclaims, turning around to see what the woman had looked at and finally noticing Matt. "What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing much," Matt returns noncommittally, aiming to stay casual. "Who's this?"

"This is Marianne," Gabe responds cheerfully, gesturing with one hand in a flourish that makes her laugh, high and a little breathy. "We've been talking."

"Hello," Matt says to her, because he feels like he's probably supposed to, but then next he probably negates it. "But what are you doing over here?" he asks, turning to face Gabe completely, his tone over the top and his big fake pout more audible than visible so it'll be taken as a joke, and afterwards he negates it with a grin besides. All the same, he feels kind of squirmy and guilty and like this is a dick move even as he does it -- a dick move, and not very _him_. At least, he'd like to _think_ this isn't very him. He sure hopes so.

"What do you mean?" Gabe laughs, eyebrows approaching his hairline, and Matt actually bats his eyelashes at him. For effect. Obviously.

He doesn't miss the way that makes Gabe swallow hard, though.

"Well," he says, faux-coy, trying to project I Am Joking with every line of his body, "I just meant, wouldn't you rather be spending time with me?"

Gabe blinks, surprise clear on his face, his mouth falling open just so, but laughing, so Matt laughs too. It's his fakest laugh, though, a little higher pitched than normal in order to (mostly) hide the fact that it sounds as uncomfortable and plastic as it feels.

The thing is, Matt means it -- even as he's messing with Gabe, even as he's joking -- as "me and the boys", but it isn't, and they both know it.

Marianne appears more amused than anything else, thank God, but Matt only gets a half-second to feel relieved about that before Gabe's whole face suddenly freezes and then instantly transforms into this mask of impish mischief that bodes well, if history serves, for basically no one.

Oh, _shit_.

"Well, yeah," Gabe says blithely, smirking. "Nothing against you, of course," he adds to Marianne, who laughs, her teeth sparkling when she throws her head back a bit with the sound. "It's just that Matty here, he's a real beauty."

"Oh, come on," Matt protests kind of weakly, knowing full well that he brought whatever this is upon himself and dreading it all the same.

"I'm serious!" Gabe tells him, and his tone says otherwise for Marianne's sake, but there's something unsettling in his eyes that would inspire question, even if Matt didn't already know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he's telling the truth. "Great at what he does, smart, funny, easy on the eyes…" He trails off, suddenly a little pink in the cheeks, but Marianne doesn't seem to notice.

"I see what you mean," she says mock-thoughtfully, tapping one finger on her chin and tilting her head to the side just slightly. "I mean, even _I'd_ rather spend time with him than with me."

Matt notices Gabe's flush, though -- and more than that, even, he notices the way his eyes are suddenly fixed on the floor and he's shifting his weight subtly, a million little signs saying he's uncomfortable, that he didn't mean to say nearly as much as he'd said. After these recent weeks of watching everything Gabe says and does to keep him from compulsively sharing something he'll regret, the signs are… kind of obvious.

What's worse -- better? more? -- is, he's pretty sure Gabe notices him noticing, because his cheeks are just getting darker. Matt can feel an answering blush rising in his own cheeks, and he looks away quickly, holding onto the fragile, futile hope that Gabe won't have seen it, that he won't, in turn, have understood.

It's all he can do to walk away, mumbling some excuse under his breath and almost stumbling over his on feet in his haste to escape.

He's not sure how he manages to avoid Gabe for the remainder of the evening, but it probably has something to do with the way Gabe's not-so-subtly avoiding him, too. Every time they can't quite avoid making eye contact from across the room, and every time Matt realizes too late that he's going to have to walk by wherever Gabe is on his way to get somewhere else, it sinks into his skin like a bruise; it's a throbbing, almost-itchy discomfort that he can't seem to shake, and he spends a lot more time staring at the floor than he'd have liked too, and he ends up leaving a lot earlier than he might have intended. The only thing that makes him feel a tiny bit better in that respect is that he sees Gabe leaving, too, around the same time.

So at the end of the night, they go home -- _separately_ , to their _separate_ homes -- and that's okay on its own, at least for now. But there's something weird lingering in the air, too, like it's just waiting for a chance to burst all over them, and Matt spends the entire night tossing and turning, never quite able to fall into the deep sleep he needs, even bone-tired after a game.

When his alarm goes off, he feels worse than he had when he got in bed the night before, and now he doesn't even have the possibility of sleep to keep him from thinking way too hard for the hour and the amount of rest he'd gotten. A million and three thoughts crash-landing in his brain is not the best way to wait for his coffee machine to finish percolating, but apparently that's the hand he's dealt himself.

He's having to seriously re-evaluate a lot of things he'd previously thought were pretty solid, is the problem. For example: there's the idea, apparently-possibly false, that Gabe likes girls. Exclusively. He does You Can Play and all that stuff because he's a good guy, but he's 100% straight. Admittedly, most of that conclusion comes from omission -- Gabe's never _mentioned_ liking guys. Has he? Surely he would have accidentally blurted out something like that right now, seeing as he _can't stop telling the truth_. ( _Maybe_ , a too-clever voice in the back of Matt's head points out, _that's part of why he was so worried about trying to shut himself up._ Matt tries his best to ignore it.)

Wound all up in that is the idea that Matt himself is 100% straight, and that those odd feelings he'd had from time to time, mostly about teammates and the NHL superstars of his youth, are just friendship and admiration -- just an extra layer of _team_. He's never really thought about other guys in any sort of concrete _"that way"_ , but then again, he's never _let_ himself.

He absently reaches for a mug from the cabinet above his head and thinks of Gabe and thinks, maybe, he can admit he could see the appeal of the idea.

He shakes his head and pours the coffee. These hypotheticals are going to kill him, but there aren't enough _facts_ \-- there never are, when it comes to something like this. There are a few, though; maybe there are even enough to work with.

Okay, so -- Gabe is currently compelled to tell the truth. That's fact #1. He… said a bunch of things in just such a state that make it seem an awful lot like he's interested in being more-than-friendly with Matt. That's fact number #2. And Matt, well. Matt feels those words where they've come to rest in his chest like hot coals, warm and invigorating but also terrifying and probably a little dangerous. That's probably fact #3.

So: he has those three facts, and connecting the dots between them is almost sickeningly easy, when he lays them out like that. Except that, easy as it is, they don't quite add up, not perfectly.

Or, well, they _do_ , he's just not sure he likes _how_. Not sure he _understands_ how, really. And, really -- that's not that surprising, is it? This is all new to him, and it's early in the morning, and he hadn't slept well last night, and there's too much jumping around in his brain for him to sort it out properly on his own.

Matt sighs.

He's going to have to talk to Gabe.

 

\---

Knowing Gabe can't lie to him makes this both easier and more terrifying, and certainly a hell of a lot weirder.

Here he is, standing outside the door to Gabe's condo, his hand hovering a half-inch from knocking, and on the one hand, he's trying to convince himself that this is all going to be okay, because clearly _something_ is up, and if something is up and Gabe can't lie to him about it or even try to downplay it or fib a little, and is his suspicions about what exactly Gabe won't be lying to him about are right, then this should turn out okay. He should be able to knock, and be answered, and ask the questions he wants to ask, and get the truth in return, and at the end of all of this, he should be okay, and he should have not fucked up a good solid friendship -- not to mention an important working relationship, _definitely_ not to mention this humming promise of something else, something new -- and Gabe ought not to hate him. Or be made uncomfortable by him. Or whatever it is, exactly, that Matt's afraid of, that he can't quite put a finger on.

The problem is, he's not at _all_ sure about any one of those things, much less the whole kit and kaboodle.

If one side of his brain is trying to convince him that this is all going to work out just fine, then the other half is screaming in his ear that this is the worst decision he's ever made, that he's going to positively ruin everything and be left without anyone else to blame. There's a darker, crueler version of his own voice telling him in no uncertain terms that if he goes in there and tells Gabe the things he half-wants, half-dreads to tell him, he'll be laughed out or thrown out or some combination of both and nothing will ever be the same. _How do you go back on something like that?_ he asks himself, afraid and ashamed of how afraid he is. _How do you fix that? You can't._ I _can't._

It's honestly impossible for him to say exactly how long he stands there, fist clenched white-knuckled in a sort of no-man's-land between knocking and turning away. Maybe it's only a few minutes, maybe it's more like half an hour; he's damn lucky he was able to get in without having to call Gabe to come down and get him through the front door, because otherwise he'd have some sort of time limit hanging over his head. As it is now, the only thing he has to worry about is Gabe opening the door and finding him standing here like a creep, having lingered on his doorstep for who knows how long, trying to figure out which side of his uncertainty is telling the closest thing to the truth.

That mental image, Gabe opening the door and finding him there and -- what? Laughing? Laughing at him, probably, smiling but unsure and on guard, the sort of embarrassing thing that Matt can't afford right now, not if he wants to actually make himself go through with this in any recognizable way -- is what pushes him over the edge, in the end. He knocks, but the first time it's too soft; his fingers seem to barely brush the wood, and he swallows hard, knowing he's going to have to try again because there's no way Gabe will have heard that. He barely heard it himself.

He's dipped his toe in the proverbial water now, though, and somehow that makes it endlessly easier to knock again, more firmly, a little more like he's a functioning adult with his shit together who is totally prepared for the conversation he's about to have with his friend about whether or not they're interested in boning each other, or at least, like, going on dates and maybe kissing and stuff. For that matter, it's a little more like he's in control of this situation enough that he's not going to describe a potential relationship with phrases like _kissing and stuff_ , if/when Gabe should ask.

On which note: Gabe yells "Coming!" from somewhere in the depths of the place, and Matt shifts uncomfortably, fighting the urge to wring his hands and fuss with his shirt. He doesn't quite manage to stop himself from nervously messing with his hair, and that, of course, is when Gabe opens the door, when Matt's got his fingers twisted up in trying to get stray strands out of his face, probably looking like a teenager getting ready to meet his first date at the front door.

So much for trying not to embarrass himself.

"...Matt, hey," Gabe says a second later, his lips twisting up into a fond half-smile, and Matt spares a slightly choked-sounding laugh at his own expense.

"Um, hi," Matt replies, his voice way too shaky for his own taste, God, he should have probably resigned himself to this whole thing being a disaster beforehand. There's an incredibly awkward moment of both of them looking partially at each other and partially at their own feet, not saying anything, and then all of a sudden it's the opposite, the both of them trying to talk at once and tripping over their own words as much as they're tripping over each other's.

"I just wanted to ask you something --"

"Look, I'm sorry about the other day, I -- "

"You go first," Matt says, relatively certain his blush borders on ridiculous at this point.

"Um," Gabe chokes. "No, you should probably..."

Oh, great. For one vicious moment, Matt wishes with all his heart that it was _him_ who couldn't stop telling the truth, that he could have some sort of -- well, some sort of _something_ to push him into action so that he wouldn't have to do it himself. For that one vicious moment, he doesn't feel any sort of sympathy for Gabe -- instead, he's utterly _jealous_ of him; he doesn't manage to catch himself before he thinks, _He's lucky he doesn't have to deal with this feeling anymore, he can just_ say _things like this_. Then, of course, he promptly feels horrible, which doesn't actually help anything, just makes him shuffle his feet and wince and dig his fingernails bitingly into the flesh of his arm.

Somehow, that shame is exactly what it takes.

"I was just," he manages, trying to look Gabe in the eye or at least in the face and utterly failing. _Baby steps,_ he tells himself, and tries to at least keep talking. "I mean, I... look. Why did you say what you said? Before, I mean. Why did -- why did you say that?"

It's entirely obvious what he's talking about, and he can instantly feel the change in the air with the way Gabe stiffens and sucks in a quick, slightly shaky breath. Apparently he can't look and talk at the same time just yet, but he can do them separately, and so he glances up without any real idea of what he'll find, just hope and terror tangling together in his stomach like a slick mess of worms.

Gabe's looking at him, too, and Matt can see that same exact mix of emotions roiling around on his face, in his eyes. Somehow, that's comforting, and -- well, Matt's glad that at least this once he manages to settle on just that one emotion, a little tingle of it warming his fingers and his cheeks and the tips of his ears. It's only there for an instant before it slips away again, but it's lovely while it lasts, the calm before what he's really, really, _really_ hoping turns out not to be a storm.

They stare at each other for one second more.

"I think I love you and I'm not sure what to do about it," Gabe blurts, and then promptly turns vivid scarlet and slams the door in his face.

Utter silence, both around him and inside Matt's head, which has been shocked blank. Then:

"You're not gone, are you?" Gabe says through the door, and Matt shakes his head slowly, not quite able to speak. Then he catches himself and clears his throat, though it feels like he's trying to speak through cotton.

"No," he half-mumbles, but he knows Gabe hears him because he gets a groan in response, then a few beats more of silence, and then some rustling and a soft _click_ that leads to the door slowly swinging open once again.

Gabe still bears a basic resemblance to, say, a tomato, but he also looks really guilty now, which makes something in Matt's stomach twist unsettlingly. He swallows heavily, suddenly sure he has to fix this but not sure how.

"Can I come in?" he asks hesitantly, and watches as Gabe wavers on indecision for a second before slowly nodding and stepping back, holding the door open wide.

"Um," he adds as soon as the door swings shut behind him. This is the part he's not sure how to do without being a massive dick, but -- he has to know. He tries to tell himself this isn't using Gabe's… _condition_ against him, and mostly fails, but, well, hopefully he'll make up for it soon enough. "Could you, uh… maybe expand on that a little?"

The look Gabe shoots him is more than a little betrayed, and basically thoroughly miserable. Oh, God, Matt realizes. At least in this exact instant, he 100% thinks Matt's going to reject him, possibly with an added side of disgust and anger.

But, of course, Gabe talks anyway. He can't not.

"I've -- been into you for a while now," Gabe admits. "Um, since I was a rookie. You were so passionate, and determined, and I wanted to _be_ you, kind of, and then… I don't know, then I guess I started to notice you were, you know, good-looking and sweet and funny and you're _so_ good with kids and dogs and I know this all sounds really stupid, and you probably hate me right now, but I wanted to take you home to meet my _family_ , and then you were in Sweden during the lockout and it was, you know, so close but yet so far, and please make me stop talking, I'm sorry --"

"There's nothing to be _sorry_ for!" Matt exclaims, eyes wide, and Gabe _freezes_ ; it doesn't even look like he's breathing, he just sort of stares halfway between Matt and the ground with his mouth still hanging open.

Matt takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly; Gabe flinches just slightly at the sound and, holy shit, Matt can't believe this. He really can't believe this.

"Gabe, look at me," he says slowly, and, even more excruciatingly slowly, Gabe does, his eyes kind of huge and blue and uncertain.

Okay. He can do this. He can definitely do this. "I'm going to tell you the truth, too, okay?" he says, and Gabe blinks twice, in quick succession. "I'm -- you're going to have to trust me, but I _promise_ , I'm telling you the truth."

Gabe's shoulders somehow tense up another notch from where they were already, but slowly, carefully, he nods, his eyes never leaving Matt's.

The air in the room suddenly feels too heavy, filling up his lungs like water, but he looks at Gabe, sees at the way he's still clearly petrified, and he fights through that deadening feeling because he _has_ to.

"I haven't been in love with you since you were a rookie," Matt admits, and Gabe looks like he's stopped breathing again. "At least, um, not that I know of? Or that I noticed? But these last few weeks, I…"

Okay, maybe he overestimated his own ability to say words.

No. He _can_ \-- he has to, because Gabe still has this expression on his face that's sort of like his whole world is crumbling down around him.

"I've done some thinking, and I think maybe I haven't always been completely honest with myself?" he tries, and Gabe suddenly stirs into life again, blinking, and it's like something's dawning behind his eyes.

"…are you saying I made you have a gay panic?" he asks at a glacial pace, and Matt winces a little because, okay, maybe not the words he would have chosen, but also, he's not wrong.

"Less of a gay panic, more of a… I don't know, a _Gabe_ panic?" he tries. "I mean, um -- yeah, pretty much, except the gay part wasn't so much a gay part, I guess it was a… bisexual part? But Gabe panic sounds better, eh?"

Gabe snorts, the first sign of laughter or happiness in this whole conversation, and isn't _that_ a relief; Matt feels something heavy lift off the both of them at the sound. "And what did your _Gabe panic_ tell you?" he asks, and it's clear enough that he's still expecting the answer to be something along the lines of "I don't think we can be friends anymore, never speak to me again," but talking at all is at least a step in the right direction.

Matt smiles at him -- hesitantly and waveringly, because he's still not sure _how_ they're going to get through this, but he's pretty certain they're going to, one way or another.

"I'm pretty into you, too," he admits, grinning a little self-consciously, and Gabe freezes solid all over again. "I mean -- once I started to think about it, I realized it's kind of been there for a while, just, you know, I didn't get it. But, I mean, you're kind of amazing?"

"Kind of," Gabe chokes out, and it sounds like he's probably trying to make a joke, so Matt smiles at him again.

"Well, they don't make just anyone the youngest captain in history," Matt informs him. "Not to mention, I don't know if you've noticed this, but you're kind of gorgeous, and Paisley _adores_ you, and you're one of the most genuinely _nice_ people I've ever met, and --"

"Okay, stop," Gabe interrupts, and, oh, good, the tomato-face blush is back.

"What?" Matt demands, grinning slyly. "If you're gonna rattle off my good qualities, I'm sure as hell gonna list yours."

Gabe raises an eyebrow, but otherwise tactfully avoids that. He looks down at the ground instead, and smiles sort of softly, and somehow that, out of all of this, is what makes Matt's heartbeat flutter embarrassingly.

"You're serious?" Gabe finally asks quietly, meeting Matt's eyes again, and his heart is suddenly in his throat and rendering him incapable of saying anything else; between one heartbeat and the next, he becomes amazing, achingly aware that they're still close together here in Gabe's entryway, and it seems like the only thing he can do is reach out and let himself grasp for Gabe's hand in a question he can't seem to ask. It feels -- weirdly intimate, kind of sudden, bolder than he would have expected from himself, and also amazing and somehow _right_.  
   
"Yeah," he manages through the feeling constricting his vocal chords, and Gabe meets his eyes again, taking a step not-so-subtly closer.  
   
“Yeah?” he asks, grinning, and their foreheads are touching now, holy _shit_ , Gabe’s got one hand resting on his waist, holy shit, _holy shit_ \--  
   
“ _Yeah_ ,” he repeats, rolling his eyes fondly, and he's not sure who moves or when or how it happens but Gabe's face is suddenly a whole hell of a lot nearer to his, and it's not so hard after all to carefully, hesitantly press forward just a hairsbreadth more under their lips are pressed softly together.

It's quite a short kiss, and very chaste, but it makes Matt's fingers tingle anyway. He laughs softly, nervously, and Gabe laughs back at him.

"So," Matt says, casting around for something to say, because it still feels like there are a million things they need to say to one another, it's just that he's having trouble thinking of any of them right now. "Um…"

"You think I'm gorgeous?" Gabe asks him, fluttering his eyelashes, and Matt's grateful for the assist, so he doesn't even try to deny it.

"Oh, come on, like you need me to tell you that," he scoffs instead.

Gabe laughs softly, and his chest is kind of pressed up against Matt's enough that he can _feel_ it rumbling through his body, which, wow.

"You're right," he says mock-seriously. "It means less coming from you than from, you know, strangers on the internet or whatever."

There's a half a second where neither of them realizes what just happened, and then they both catch it at once and sort of gasp.  
"Holy _shit_ \--" Gabe is saying, and at the same time Matt half-yells "Did you just _lie_?"

"Yeah," Gabe responds, sounding half-dazed. "I don't know _how_ , but -- yeah."

Matt has a terrible, terrible thought about _how_ but he doesn't want to say it, because if he says it, Gabe will _never_ let it go, and he really does not need this particular comparison hanging over his head. Unfortunately, he fails to realize just how terrible Gabe himself is.

"Oh my God," Gabe outright giggles, "this is some Disney-level true love's kiss stuff, huh?"

Matt can do nothing but groan wordlessly and bury his head in Gabe's shoulder. What? It's right there, and it's available, and he needs _some_ way to display his disapproval of that comment.

"Aww, don't be embarrassed now," Gabe _coos_ at him. "Does this make you Prince Charming? I think this makes you Prince Charming."

"Stop," Matt grumbles, but maybe his point is somewhat counteracted by the fact that he's saying it into the crook of Gabe's neck. "I hate you so much right now."

"No, you don't," Gabe says, and -- his tone is enough to make Matt draw back and look him in the eyes again, because once again it sounds like he's trying to make a joke and utterly failing. He's miles too fond, and it makes something warm and inherently good light up under Matt's skin.

There are still about half a million questions buzzing in the back of his mind -- questions he doesn't quite know how to ask just yet  _(where do we go from here?)_ , questions he sort of knows he'll never really get a good answer to _(what made this happen?_   Who _made this happen? How do you make someone tell the truth?)_ , questions he doesn't really need answered just yet _(did you know that when you smile at me like that, it makes me want to give you everything I have? No? Well, now you do)_ \-- but for right now, just for right now, he pushes them all down under the surface and promises himself he'll deal with him later and lets himself soak in the moment.

"No, I really don't," he agrees, smiling, and finds that telling the truth has never been easier.


End file.
